New York: NRCC Ties Kathy Hochul to Obama in New Push

On a billboard truck that has been driving around freshman Rep. Kathy Hochul’s upstate New York district, there’s a huge cartoon image of the Democratic Congresswoman and President Barack Obama side by side, and next to the word “Obamacare.”

It’s part of a paid political theater effort the National Republican Congressional Committee is launching today in an attempt to tie Hochul — generally well-liked — to Obama, who is very likely to lose the GOP-leaning district in November.

The weeklong effort is backed by five-figures worth of spending, but may be extended.

“It didn’t take Democrat Kathy Hochul long to become part of the problem in Washington,” NRCC Communications Director Paul Lindsay said in a statement. “Just last week she doubled down on President Obama’s government takeover of healthcare that has increased costs on New York families and cut Medicare for seniors. This is only the beginning of our campaign to hold Kathy Hochul accountable and ensure that New Yorkers are aware of the consequences of another Hochul-Obama term in office.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee knocked the NRCC’s effort, noting, correctly, that the three locations where the billboard truck is scheduled to appear today and Thursday — a local GOP headquarters and two Hochul Congressional offices — are not actually in the newly configured district. The scheduled stops were listed on an NRCC press release.

“Republicans are so focused on trying to distract from Chris Collins’ agenda of cutting Medicare to give tax breaks for millionaires like himself that they can’t even find Kathy Hochul’s district,” DCCC spokesman Josh Schwerin said in a statement.

The truck will also be driving around the entire newly configured district, an NRCC spokesman said.